The director of Oz, the Great and Powerful finally confirms that he's off the Blizzard video game adaptation.

Movie adaptations of video games have remained a tricky process for Hollywood. Gamers have been heartbroken that no movie has truly conveyed the creative magnitude of their worlds and characters. News that Sam Raimi was attached to direct a World of Warcraft movie gave both gamers and moviegoers hope that a visionary artist could find a bridge between these two media. Raimi had even gone so far as to say in interviews that he was working on a standalone story that would take place within the World of Warcraft realm.

There had been oddly little news about the World of Warcraft movie since Sam Raimi went on to direct Oz: The Great and Powerful. Oz opens next year so he would still have to finish post-production on that before he could seriously move on to World of Warcraft. Unfortunately for video game fans, Raimi has confirmed to us that the Warcraft film moved on, due to Raimi’s unavailability.

After Sam Raimi’s press conference for the Oz: The Great and Powerful at San Diego Comic-Con, CraveOnline was able to go right up to Raimi for a follow-up question.

“Actually, they don’t have me directing World of Warcraft anymore because when I took the Oz job, they had to move on to another director,” Raimi said. “They had to start making it.”

Interestingly, we cannot find any reports of Bilzzard Entertainment speaking with other directors, or even confirming that Raimi is out. This, from Raimi directly, which he told us as he was leaving the press conference room, is the first we’ve heard of the news.

While disappointing, it is understandable that a director with many offers would eventually have to choose one, and that it might preclude the other. As Raimi fans we’re glad he has such high class offers to choose from in the first place.

CraveOnline be back with more on World of Warcraft newsas soon as we level up. (Come on, how else were we going to close this one?)